Trick or Treat?
by Cyrus559
Summary: It is time for Halloween and Kagome would really like to have Inu Yasha to come with her, unfortunately is the hanyo stubborn as ever and won't be pursued so easily. What neither of them expect is the unexpected help from something often overlooked.


**Hello, it has been a long time since I last posted something on my own, but last year's Halloween story took me almost half a year to finish, and while struggling with it, I was also writing on "The Time Traveler's Pharaoh. I was therefore quite unsure if I had the energy to come up with something new, but I had a small idea this time that I really wanted to write into a one-shot, so here you go^^**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Inu Yasha**

* * *

**Trick or treat?**

Kagome climbed up from the well, a day earlier than she said she would be back and with a special quest in mind. As she expected from arriving so early, no one was there to greet her so she went straight to the village to see if she could find Inu Yasha and the others there, her signature backpack was not accompanying her this time because she hoped she wouldn't need it yet. Not that she was ready for their next travel in the first place either.

"Hello guys!" she greeted upon entering Keade's hut where her friends where gathered.

"Kagome, you are back!" Shippo squealed and jumped to make her catch him in her embrace. His fluffy tail wagged back and forth like one on a happy dog. "Did you bring back any goodies from the future?" he asked eagerly before noticing that something crucial was missing. "But where is your backpack, was it to heavy for you to carry?"

"No, it is nothing like that," Kagome smiled. "I didn't bring anything with me, you see…"

"Yes?" Inu Yasha grunted as soon as she hesitated, and Kagome knew that he immediately had worked out what this implied. "Come on, what is your excuse this time, more of your useless tests?"

Kagome shook her head, making her raven hair wave around her while patting Shippo's head. "No, not this time. "It is a festival tonight and I have been invited to attend but I don't want to go alone, so I was hoping…"

"Then you can stay here with us, then you won't be alone and I can protect you!" Inu Yasha huffed predictably.

Miroku sighed. "Inu Yasha, why can't you just be a gentleman for once and accompany Kagome to this festival. It won't kill you, you know."

"Keh, of course not, but I can't guarantee that I won't kill anyone."

Shaking his head, Miroku turned towards Kagome with a supporting smile. "Say, would this be the same festival you have mentioned before? I have been trying to keep track on the various festivals and celebrations you have in the future, and this is the Halloween festival, isn't it?"

"Yes, and I missed it last year."

"Hmm, wasn't it around that time we were trapped in the cave with the youkai bats and struggled to find our way back out again?" Sango said.

Kagome sat Shippo down again. "True, and the year before that again, I also missed the festival because the stupid war lords decided to fight each other on the field where we camping."

"And then the petty youkais decided to show up and complicate the whole mess!" Shippo added thoughtfully. "We spent the good part of the next day cleaning up the battlefield and bury the dead."

"At least had one of the bastards a jewel shard so we got that one covered!" Inu Yasha mumbled.

"I have never dug so many holes or carried so many corpses in whole my life" Kagome groaned, thinking back on the back-breaking work it turned out to be.

Rolling her eyes, Sango also remembered it, "And of course it had to start raining after a couple of hours. I would have refused to help the winning side bury them if I didn't know youkais would come and feast upon them if left unburied."

"But tell me," Miroku coughed. "Didn't you also mention that Halloween is a festival where people dress up in scary costumes and walk around to scare others while asking for candies? If that is the case, it would be the perfect opportunity for Inu Yasha to come as he is without anyone being any wiser!"

"No way in hell!" came Inu Yasha's sharp reply.

Shippo on the other side was the one who felt disappointed. "It sounds like a festival a kitsune could have come up with, I wish that I could go with you Kagome. After all, playing tricks on people and deceive is kitsune nature after all. And you even get candies for it!"

"Maybe one day Shippo, you can come and visit me in the future and we can go together." Kagome said, not revealing if it was a hope for the well to let him through or a hope to meet him again at a time when her little boy long since had grown into adulthood.

Kagome turned her gaze to meet Inu Yasha's amber eyes with a plea on her face, "Inu Yasha, I came back here to ask if you would like to go with me?"

"I am NOT going to places where people dress up as idiots or pretend to scare each other, it is just stupid so forget it. It is much better to stay here!" Inu Yasha growled.

"To stay here and do what? I am tired of playing cards each night, and you hardly participate in those games either. The last couple of years I have not gone anywhere that doesn't involve death, gore and bloody demon hunts. So just for this once I want to hang out and have some fun!"

"Inu Yasha, come on and go with Kagome," Sango shot in, agreeing with the monk's earlier statement. "You need to relax and have fun from time to time too and not just sit here and watch Kagome while polishing your sword.

"Fuck off!" Inu Yasha shouted. "Festivals are stupid, all of them and I m never going to attend one!"

"Please Inu yasha, it won't be bad I promise. No one is going to look twice at you and we don't need to stay up the entire night."

"NO and that's a final! Go without me!" Inu Yasha shouted, got up from the floor and marched out from the hut where he almost walked down Kaede who happened to come back from a visit in the village.

For a moment, Kagome only stood there and watched the red clad half demon walk away, probably to sulk in his favorite tree. She wanted to shout, call him names, to cry and curl up in a corner, but the mixing motion only resulted in a deep sigh of regret that had her stare at the floor.

"Why did I ever bother to ask, I knew he wouldn't come anyway."

Keade who didn't know the cause of the scene which nearly gotten her knocked over, looked at her with sympathy. "I am sorry to see Inu Yasha making you feel down, but try to give him some time and perhaps he will change his mind."

"I doubt so Kaede. I asked if he would like to come with me to a festival, but I keep forgetting that he is not overly found of these kinds of things, or any things at all that involves more than four people. I guess I should get back and just get ready for tomorrow when we leave again. I still got something I need to pack."

* * *

Inu Yasha sat on a branch high up in the Goshinboku tree and watched Kagome walk towards the well.

"_You know you hate to see her like this!" _a deep voice in his head said.

"Keh, I am not going to that Halloween thing of hers, it is stupid." Inu Yasha replied silently as he saw Kagome vanish in a bluish light.

"_You disappointed her and made her upset with your flat-out denial. She only wants to have some fun, and this was your chance to be alone with her!_" the voice reprimanded.

"Alone? Fat chance! In here time, people are everywhere, you bump into an entire group of them as soon as you turn around. She won't be alone. And she got her noisy friends to keep her company."

"_But they aren't you, those girls can't protect her if somethings happen. That is your job, besides what if she meets up with this Hojo guy, he will certainly not turn her down!_"

"Blah, bastard, what does she even see in such a weakling like him?" Inu Yasha rolled around on the branch, turning away from the ancient well.

"_Nothing, but who else will be there for here?_"

Inu Yasha snorted, trying to ignore it all and focus on the darkening woods around him.

"_It isn't the festival itself that holds you back, it is your childhood memories. Do you really think that all gatherings are like when you were young and everyone knew what you were?_"

Feeling ambivalent about the thought, Inu yasha nevertheless closed his eyes and let his memories take him back to a time when he and his mother had tried to participate in one of the stupid mortal festivals. Seeing a group of other kids approximately his age, Izayoi had told him to go over and play with them and make some new friends. The kids however, upon seeing what he was had immediately started picking on him, wanting nothing to do with a half demon, and as they phrased it, especially not on a festival for humans. It was only by the intervention from Izayoi that none of them went any further than verbally abuse, and after that she had taken him home again where they spent the rest of the evening together in silence after she had apologized on behalf of the kids whom she didn't even know.

The memory was certainly not a memorable one….

"_But do you have to take it out on poor Kagome, she has done nothing wrong!_"

"But what if….?" Inu Yasha though sharply, not wanting to be guilt tripped any further.

"_She has done nothing to deserve your ire and bad attitude, she doesn't even know why you refuse to come with her! This is not your childhood, and if someone tries to pick on you, you are stronger than thirty men, show them! You don't even have to change our clothes for this event! Sometimes I believe you have no interest in her at all, give her to Hojo or Koga instead!_"

"I would rather die than giving Kagome to any of them!" Inu Yasha barked out loud, scaring a couple of pigeons out of their nest.

"_But you still refuse to go!_"

"Just shut up already, I… can't!" Inu Yasha whispered.

The voice in his head growled, not convinced by his display. "_Alright, you are just too afraid for what can happen. Have it your way then, but I am definitively going, and if the night is a success, perhaps you can find the courage to go with her next year!_"

"What, what the heck do you mean?" Inu Yasha said confused and bolted to sit upright on the branch. The inner voice just laughed;

"_Watch me!_" it said cryptically, and then he suddenly felt his fangs and claws start to grow.

* * *

"Are you sure you don't want to come with us?"

Her mom, grandpa and brother were ready to go and stood under shrine portal; her grandpa in his normal shrine costume, Sota as an Inu Yasha-look-alike, complete with a white wig, while her mom had a more normal attire since she would be the one looking after Sota most of the night.

"No thanks, I have to get up at a proper time tomorrow since we will be leaving early," Kagome said and sat down on the stair with her back against the door. "I am expected back in the feudal era at sunrise so I guess it is just the bed for me right now, besides, I am tired."

Her mother nodded understanding. "That is alright my dear, I guess that after all you have seen in the feudal era, Halloween isn't your thing anymore."

"No, after dealing with decapitated, rotting and half-eaten bodies for the last couple of years, besides of the endless variations of youkais in all their grotesque forms, I can do with a night without it. You can go and have fun instead."

"Alright then. We won't be home again before an hour or so after midnight so I hope we don't wake you up when we come back."

"Trick or treat!" Sota shouted into the air and waved with his sword, "Be aware of the mighty hanyo, hand over your treats or I will show you my Tetsusaiga!"

"You are not allowed to wave with your sword young man!" said the Higurashi senior, "And do not eat everything you get at once, or else you will wake up with a stomach ache tonight, remember…."

"…yes I do." Sota huffed, remind Kagome of the time she went trick or treat with Eri, Yuka and Ayumi. The amount of candies was just a little too much for their small tummies back then, and Sota was probably even worse.

"See you later then and have fun, Good night!" Kagome said and waved good bye to her family as they started walking down the stairs before disappeared into the Tokyo jungle. The night was warm and even a few stars were visible on the heavily light-polluted sky so Kagome decided to linger a bit longer where she sat and stared into the light-filled metropolis. The sounds of traffic, people and electrical devices was a stark contrast to the overwhelming darkness of the past, and despite the charm of rural ancient days, she knew the darkness also had the power to invoke fear and insecurity that didn't exist in her time. Back then, every shadow and unseen room could hide a deathly danger, making most people take shelter in their homes when night extinguished the day.

"Inu Yasha?" her eyebrows rose in surprise as soon as she heard herself uttered his name. Kagome had lost herself in thoughts such that she completely failed to notice the presence of his youki until he came walking over the courtyard.

Kagome stared and stood up "Did you decide to come after all?"

"Hmmm" he said, not sounding entirely like his usual self but kept on marching towards her as if he owned the world.

"Inu Yasha?" she repeated and gasped.

The city light bathed him in an ethereal glow, but it was his claws, long as kitchen knives, elongated fangs, demonic marks and red glowing eyes that widened her eyes.

"What happened?" she asked, not in fear, but in worry.

"Nothing happened my dear," he answered in a smooth voice that sent chills down her spine. "Let us say that I had a second though about the decision earlier and I wish to see what your festival have to offer." Inu Yasha stopped first when he stood so close that Kagome was forced to bend her neck to see the predatory grin that stared down at her. "Let me see if I recall the point of this festival correct: Trick or treat?"

For a moment, Kagome stood still under the scrutinizing gaze of Inu Yasha's full demon form, then a smile matching the predator's own, appeared on her lips.

"It will definitively go for a treat!" she grinned and opened the door for him.

End.

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**What happens next is something I will leave to your imagination.**

**Please leave a review and tell me what you think^^**


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